Mauna Loa’s lava

 

 Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, began sending up fountains of glowing rock and spilling lava from fissures as its first eruption in nearly four decades began on Nov. 27, 2022. The magma that comes out of Mauna Loa comes from a series of magma chambers found between about 1 and 25 miles below the surface.  Beneath Hawaii, magma can move upward through the cracks to feed different volcanoes on the surface. Hawaii is in the middle of an oceanic plate. In fact, it is the most isolated volcanic hot spot on Earth, far away from any plate boundary. Volcanic activity is monitored with many different instruments. The perhaps simplest to understand is GPS. The way scientists use GPS is different from that of everyday life. It can detect minuscule movements of a few centimeters.  A very important tool is watching for seismic activity. Volcanoes like Hawaii’s are monitored with a large network of seismographs. Any movement of magma below will cause tremors that are picked up by the seismometers. A few weeks before the eruption of Mauna Loa, scientists noticed that the tremors came from ever shallower depths, indicating that magma was rising and an eruption might be imminent. This allowed scientists to warn the public.

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